Pleads for Husband

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 311, 17 December 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

Pleads for Husband

WIFE WHO HAS FORGIVEN .ALL Here is the story of a “most affectionate and loving wife” —the judge’s leseription of her—who made an eloquent plea at the Old Bailey, London, for leniency for her husband who had previously wronged her. The husband, Albert Victor Underwood (30), baker’s roundsman, of Walington, Surrey, was found not guilty >f abducting a 16-year-old Croydon girl, 3ut for embezzling his employer’s monjy he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. It was stated that Underwood and ;he girl had worked at the same place. The girl became fond of him and when te told her he was going away she suggested she should accompany him. They vent to Blackpool and stayed there together.

The wife, Mrs Gladys Elizabeth Unlerwood, a tall, attractive young wornm, asked for mercy for her husband. “I have forgiven him for his conluct,” she said to the Daily Sketch ifterwards. “He has been a wonderful tusband and a good father to his chilIren and I do want him back. “What he did was done on the spur )f the moment. He had been drinking tnd gambling heavily. Although I was reduced to going to the Public Assistance Committee 1 feel sure he- did not mean it in his heart.” Mrs Underwood was allowed ten minutes in the cell with her husband before he was taken away to prison. She told him of her love for him and said Lhe three months would soon pass and she would be waiting for him.